Thursday, 26 April 2012

In this exhilarating companion to Printz Award winner and National Book Award finalist Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi brilliantly captures a dark future America that has devolved into unending civil wars, driven by demagogues who recruit children to become soulless killing machines. Two refugees of these wars, Mahlia and Mouse, are known as 'war maggots': survivors who have barely managed to escape the unspeakable violence plaguing the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities. But their fragile safety is threatened when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool, who is hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers. When tragedy strikes, Mahlia is faced with an impossible decision: risk everything to save the boy who once saved her, or flee to her own safety. Drawing upon the brutal truths of current events, The Drowned Cities is a powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.

Releasing May 3rd, 2012

Chaos' Review:So lets begin with this cover. Its gorgeous and well balanced with the right hint of colors that catches the readers attention. As always, many of us have the tendency to judge books by their covers, even if the habit is bad, we all know that the perfect way to snatch publicity for a book is to combine the story with beautiful illustrations on the cover. Its the ultimate plan. The Drowned Cities is the companion of the well known Ship Breaker book, and has a very erupt beginning. I'd say that the beginning was what kept me reading further because it was so WEIRD but in a GOOD way! It contained a completely different story that isn't the typical "Girl meets boy, they hate each, then sparks fly after critical incident, LOVE". Yeaaaa....That story line is always fun, but predictable. This book on the other hand, was not predictable in any sense at all. There's a raging beast, a big mouth girl and a guy named Mouse. The big mouth girl...aka Mahlia was probably my one of favorite characters. She was upfront, had a bad temper, and even if she couldn't or more like -wasn't- allowed to speak her mind due to certain circumstances because she's a castoff product to a Chinese father and Caucasian mother; her mother passed away, whilst her father abandoned her. Therefore she lives under the guidance of a Doctor in a small village, where nobody really likes her because she's seen as "Bad Luck". Moreover, she literally didn't like being spoken down to, and would probably punch someone down if the wrong words spilled out of their mouths (once she gets the chance XP). LOL. Yeaup, she was one of my favorites. This book was filled with a lot of bloodshed and doesn't really hold a lot hope as the story continues. So if your one of those romance genre addicts, this obviously does not seem like the book for you. Also, the characters are mainly kids, and Paolo Bacigalupi twisted the story where teens are either being killed or are created to kill. It was evidently really gruesome in a wordy sense, but it kept me reading and I didn't regret opening it up once it arrived in my mailbox.

Friday, 20 April 2012

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

Chaos' Review:

What caught my attention was basically that wicked cover. Its cool and mysterious....and creepy...Which is WHY I had to go out and buy myself a copy. I love scary and weird stuff! The beginning zooms right into the story, I was so confused, but gradually things began to settle into place. Cas is the protagonist in the story, the writing is first person, therefore we get to experience everything that goes through Cas' teenage mind. It's hilarious, I was reading this while sitting on a plane and I couldn't stop laughing...literally....Everyone gave me the stink eye as if I was crazy; and before everything gets confusing, yes, Cas is a male teenager, therefore making the protagonist this hot guy that kills the dead......Cool eh?Cas was an in depth character and Kendare Blake did a fantastic job at bringing this character to life in this awesome story. Honestly, this story was definitely worth my time. The setting was perfectly described, and Kendare Blake had included enough characters to help balance out the story so it could flow properly, and so the story isn't like a Tom Cruise movie, where the protagonist is the only one that is mainly unbeatable and ALWAYS saves the day. Gratefully, the story isn't like that, due to proper incorporation of the smaller characters to balance out our Hero within this dark story. At times, the book can get descriptive, and if you're a fan of scary stories, well you might as well go buy or check this out at your nearest library, but don't worry! It's not too scary, I am more likely over exaggerating because I find enjoyment in frightening people. LOL. The book isn't too long, and there are probably many questions about who "Anna" is, well in the description it describes her as a blood thirsty, murderous ghost. That's our Anna for ya! But I did absolutely enjoy her presence in the book, she made things crazy and blew the protagonist literally off his feet. It's fantastic knowing that the girl is obviously cooler for once. I don't intend on giving much away, therefore I believe its about time for you to snag yourself a copy.

Thursday, 19 April 2012

Seventeen year old Katelyn Richards is a stronger person than anyone will ever know, and that is just the way she wants it. Behind her normal facade lies the reality of a broken home life. Thanks to her abusive mother, a string of deadbeat stepfathers, and an unsympathetic system, Katelyn has learned that the only one she can count on is herself. Her life’s mission has become to shield her nine year old brother, Kevin, and to give him the future that they both wish for. A life with no more abuse, no worries about where their next meal will come from, and no more wondering if they will have a roof over their heads.When her mother moves them again, this time to a small town in Montana, Katelyn’s resolve is shaken when she meets Max, a cute boy from her new school, who gets a glimpse into her real world. Max slowly manages to break through Katelyn’s wall of distrust, stirring up feelings she never saw coming. Now with her world more complicated than she ever intended, Katelyn struggles with the decision to follow her heart into the arms of the first boy she has ever loved. A decision that could risk the promise she made to protect Kevin, and to give them the ‘someday soon’ that is so close within their grasp.

Calamity's Review:
I was very excited when I won this book from a giveway that Tiffany King was doing on Twitter and I was looking forward to reading it. Btw, you guys should sooo follow her (@AuthorTiffany). She is awesome. Anyway, I got a kindle copy for the book and once I started reading, I COULD NOT STOP. I neglected all my chores. Seriously, my mom was not pleased. Wishing For Someday Soon captured my attention right at the beginning because it made me want to know more about the main character, Katelyn. As usual, I hadn't read the description of the book and had no idea what it was about. You should try doing that, there's a certain type of thrill to it. Look at me, living life on the edge.
So I don't USUALLY read books that only have humans in them and it was a pleasant surprise to read about normal people with normal problems. I gotta say, the book was amazing and it really changed my perspective on life, for a day or two. It made me think about things that I usually wouldn't think about.
One thing that I absolutley LOVED was that the characters actually had depth to them. They were relatable to some extent and weren't the type of characters that have only one plain old personality. They were represented as normal people, and it was done quite well. Props to Tiffany King for doing that. Not many authors can pull it off.
Maybe it was just me but I feel like there was something missing and we should have known a little more about Katelyn's mother. She was quite the dynamic character, but I needed a background story for her. Maybe something about her childhood, or maybe how she got so lost along the way. That would have been nice.
Nonetheless, I appreciated the relationship that the family had. It wasn't a great relationship they had but it was something real and I appreciated reading that. The amount of care that Katelyn had for her brother was amazing and it sort of reminded me of how Katniss was was Prim. The concept of wishing for 'someday soon' was very creative and the book defs deserves the best of the ratings!

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn’t actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else’s mind and experiences the world through that person’s eyes. She’s slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed “friend” when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie’s slashed body.

Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can’t bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting off lately, more distant, especially now that she’s been spending more time with Zane.

Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again

Calamity's Review:
Okay, so I have finished this book for a while now, but I just got lazy and didn't write a review (truth comes out). Anyway, I feel like I say this a lot, but this book was AMAZING! The suspense of it and how it all leads to something epic. Oh man, I don't even know where to start. How about we talk about Vee, the cool narcoleptic (or so they say) chick. No wait, I just need to get it out of the way, lets talk about Vee's sister, Sophie.

She is cray! and probably the worst sister ever! she hasn't really done anything to hurt Vee, but she definitely has not tried to help her poor narcoleptic sister. Sophie annoyed me because she was the type of girl that hung out with your ex-bestfriend and thought everything was fine and dandy. Maybe it was her unloyalty towards her sister. Am I overexaggerating? Probably. But the way her character is written, she seems like a little girl that is self absorbed and she would probably ditch her sister any second for a day of popularity. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of books that have cray siblings. It might just be me, but it bothers me when siblings don't stick up for eacthother.

Anyway, that was kind of a rant, I apologize. Vee, the main protagonist, has this rad abilty to "slide" into to people's minds and see everything from their point of view. She witnesses things from disgusting makeout sessions all the way to murders. It's interesting. The concept of the book was awesome and the book rarely got boring. I defs recommend this book to everybody. It was a good read and very enjoyable :)

Saturday, 14 April 2012

Description: When her parents are murdered before her eyes, sixteen-year-old Helen Cartwright finds herself launched into an underground London where a mysterious organization called the Dictata controls the balance of good and evil. Helen learns that she is one of three remaining angelic descendants charged with protecting the world's past, present, and future. Unbeknownst to her, she has been trained her whole life to accept this responsibility. Now, as she finds herself torn between the angelic brothers protecting her and the devastatingly handsome childhood friend who wants to destroy her, she must prepare to be brave, to be hunted, and above all to be strong, because temptation will be hard to resist, even for an angel.

Chaos' Review:Lets begin with the cover. It is simply gorgeous and spectacular, which attracts the readers eye right away. Eye-catching covers -always-add a little spunk and mystery into the story held within. The beginning of the story is strong and Michelle Zink sculpted the scene perfectly since it started off as fast paced and made anxiety build because, in the beginning I was like "WTF is happening?!?!?" and gradually the mystery unfolded; since the story started off so intense it kept me reading, which is a good thing. The main character is Helen, she undoubtedly seems distraught and I automatically assumed that she is going to be one of those characters that would become dependent on others for her survival. I was wrong. She was confused in the beginning of the story, since she too, was confused about the situation (just like the reader), but gradually she broke out of her funk and tried to become less bothersome and more seemingly confident about herself. I loved that, because its enjoyable to visualize how this character who loses much, evolves herself into something strong.....you know that saying.....What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well that seemed like the motto she was going by as the story progressed. As the setting becomes known, the story gets slow, then there's an eruption of fireworks as the protective Griffen builds a protective nature towards this girl he barely knows.....umm, I had the slight sense that "love at first sight" played a role in here. LOL. Then the story proceeds to get a little slow once more. However, I found this book to be an interesting time pass and probably wouldn't say no if you asked me "if I should read this or not". Now I don't plan on giving too much away, because then I'll just ruin the story for you, and this story is situated on basically finding answers. Therefore.......I must stop my fingers from typing or I'll give it all away! 2.5 Stars

Monday, 9 April 2012

I have been looking forward to Greta and The Goblin King by Chloe Jacobs for a while now and I was super excited to get to see the cover. After viewing it, my expectations for the book have risen even more and I cannot wait until november 13, 2012, when the book hits shelves. Until then, you can cherish the cover and look forward to an exclusive excerpt coming in September!

Blurb:To survive, seventeen-year-old Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job ofbounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught theattention of Mylena’s young Goblin King, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invadesher dreams and undermines her determination to escape.

ButGreta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. The full moon is meredays away, and an ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal. IfGreta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, noworld will be safe from what follows her back…

About the Author:
ChloeJacobs is a native of nowhere and everywhere, having jumped around topractically every Province of Canada before finally settling in Ontario whereshe has now been living for a respectable number of years. Her husband and sonare the two best people in the entire world, but they also make her wish she'dat least gotten a female cat. No such luck. And although the day job keeps herbusy, she carves out as much time as possible to write. Bringing new charactersto life and finding out what makes them tick and how badly she can make themsuffer is one of her greatest pleasures, almost better than chocolate and fuzzypink bunny slippers.

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!! BRACE YOURSELVES FOR THE COVER RE-REVEAL OF SIMPLICITY!! (to your left). Calamity and I were much excited to be a part of this amazing event. Simplicity is Valia Lind's first ever novel and it got a makeover (inside and out). The release date is sometime in April, but no official re-release date yet. When I first looked at the cover, I just saw the girl (I'm taking a wild guess that that is Alexis Sinclair) and the beach below her. Now that I look at it more closely you can see that they are both blended into each other, as if they are a part of each other. I need to mention how I LOVE the font. It fits in perfectly with the actual title of the book. I'm glad that the cover artist (which is the very talented Valia Lind! Yes, I know, That is AMAZING) did not try to over do it by making the font overly exaggerated. Although the font may be "simple", it's not boring.

Synopsis: Driven, beautiful Alexis Sinclair lives her life to the fullest, following her dreams of running a big company. But when her world is torn apart by a storm, everything she has ever known disappears. Now, marooned on an island with a group of men, Alexis must learn to live in a world made up of simple things. Letting go of every known convenience, she realizes how insignificant her life has become. Filled with unrequited love for her rescuer she must battle the demons buried deep inside and she must look within herself and to her faith to find the strength needed to survive. Strong and influential, Jacob Peterson, has done all he can to survive. When the fate turned its tables on him, he learned to cope with the inevitable. Plagued by his past and secrets buried there, Jacob exerts a rigid control, refusing to succumb to the joys, and torturous pain, of strong emotions. Without considering love-a gift he may never receive, he believes--he chooses to live by strict set of rules. But when a strange beautiful woman washes up on his beach, the walls that he has put up long ago begin to crumble. Is she a punishment sent from God to torment his weary soul? Or is she a gift, sent from above, there to teach him how to trust? Who is this woman? And how will he stop himself from losing his heart? Will he learn to forgive the past in order to save the woman he loves?

Make sure to Visit these websites for legit scoop on everything Valia Lind:

Monday, 2 April 2012

Description:Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.It can.She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.There is.She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.She's wrong.

Calamity's Review:
What attracted me to this book was the cover. It wasn't because the cover stood out or that the title was interesting. It was because it just sat there, blended in. I had heard of this book but I didn't really think I wanted to read it. The price wasn't too bad and I wanted to buy a book, so I picked it up. I took me a couple days to actually START reading it. It stayed in the back of my mind but for some reason, I didn't read it. Anyway, once I did, i could NOT put it down.

This is definitely one of those odd books. I was reading it, and I couldn't stop, but I don't know WHY. I just recently read many negative reviews about this book. And i was shocked! Yes, this book is kind of messy, but the author does slowly unveil everything and give us answers. I'll admit, I was sort of confused while reading, heck, I still am....but! the story was intriguing enough to stay around for. There were many questions that remained unanswered until the very end and it was very taunting. The unbeoming of Mara Dyer kept me questioning everything and it kept me on edge.

I'm not gonna over the main characters too much because although they ARE the main peeps in the book, I felt like i wasn't reading about them. Do you get what I mean? No? Well, It's like this; The main characters had no personailty. Yes, Mara Dyer (the girl protagonist) DOES have this awesome power? But other than that, I have no idea who she is.

Oh! Almost forgot, there was SOME culture in the book, and it was VERY refreshing! So although this book was compelling and the storyline was pretty rad, I think that the writing style could have been better and some more depth to characters would have been nice. I forgot to mention that Mara Dyer IS a pretty detailed character but everyone else just seems kind of flat.

Sunday, 1 April 2012

Description: (goodreads)Night A terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family...the death of his innocence...and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.

Quick Note:
Yes, I know. This is not a YA book. Sorry, but it is STILL a good read. I understand how that would be hard to comprehend.

Calamity's Review:

Night by Elie Wiesel is a novel that is meant for a mature and sophisticated audience because of the in depth details of the novel. The book makes you think beyond what is written in text. It is easy to be fooled by the thin hardcover, but honestly speaking, I have never spent more time on any book more than I have on this. And I have also never read a book this physically small. Talking about the book’s cover may seem superficial, but it is always important for me. So, although this cover could have had more illustrations to it, I have learned not to judge a book by its cover.

The title of Elie’s novel is Night. This could be interpreted in many different ways. Before reading the book, I thought that the book was named Night because of the darkness it carries. Many people are afraid of the dark and it is usually associated with fear and other negative emotions. I thought that the title tied in with the concept of war and its dreariness. I stood corrected though. After finishing the novel, it came to my attention that night was not a bad place but actually a time of peace and calm. It is when you get to reflect and reconsider events. A place where you can be yourself and not have to foresee the worries of tomorrow.

What really made this book stand out for me was the fact that this was Elie’s personal experience through the holocaust. Most books about the holocaust are usually assumptions made by historical facts and exaggerated writers. This book was full frontal, first-hand experience. That made the book all the more real and true to read. Your outlook on the whole book changes once it is made clear that all of this –actually- happened. What makes it even better –or worse- is that it was all so well written.

Wiesel does an outstanding job of covering so many major topics in his novel. He goes over discrimination, trust, denial, faith, angst, fear, humiliation and the meaning of family. While reading this book, I did not feel as if I were reading about war and concentration camps. I felt like it was much more than that. There was raw and pure emotion invested into the book. Elie describes all the changes he goes through in way that I personally cannot put in to words. He doesn’t use transitional phrases to go from one point in his life to another; he uses a tactic that I still do not understand.

This memoir that Wiesel has written approaches many emotional points that many individuals had to face. How they started questioning what they believed in and how nothing seemed to be right anymore. Everything that was once a part of Elie’s, and other’s life, was torn away and burned to ashes. It becomes clear what can become of humans and what they are capable of. Elie encounters the realization of cruelty against him and even the cruelty caused by him. Elie’s faith in god and the humanity of people becomes tarnished and he is faced with the truth of the matter.

In the end, it would be cruel of me, or anyone else, to not pass the word and let the world know of this incredibly well written and heart wrenchingly real story of Elie Wiesel.